Growing up in Fife, Scotland, Mike had his first exhibitions of his paintings in the late 1960s at the Grail Gallery in the centre of Edinburgh. After leaving school, he read Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art / Heriot-Wall University  and graduated in 1978.

After some time working as an architect in Edinburgh, he left Scotland to see the world and lived and worked in 10 countries. During this period he was drawing constantly and working as an architect. From 2008 he decided to spend more time to painting and subsequently had a number of solo and group exhibitions in the UAE, Morocco, Azerbaijan, the UK and France.

Since retiring in 2015, he has devoted himself again to painting and has developed his technique and style to better represent his current interests and concerns.